Everybody knows you’re not a real chef until you’ve conquered Hollandaise sauce, mastered boeuf bourguignon, and splattered butter on every page of Julia Child—in other words, until you’ve submitted yourself completely to les dieux of cooking: the French.

It’s no coincidence that many of the world’s all-time classic dishes are rooted in French cuisine. If you were to cook your way through Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, you’d know all the good recipes and all the important techniques, not to mention fit in with the tradition of Americans learning to cook from the French, like some of the members of our panel.

But if you didn’t want to spend nights and weekends mastering that art, you can get a decent education by browsing the 25 essentials our experts picked out. Some of them are French natives; others, foreign transplants who fell in love with the people and cuisine across the Atlantic and learned it well.

Here’s our panel of chefs and food writers, editors and bloggers, who have mastered the art of French cooking and want to make it easier for you to dabble in soupe à l’oignon, cassoulet, and salade lyonnaise.

Kerry Saretsky, London- and New York-based food writer and creator of the blog French RevolutionAnn Mah, author of Mastering the Art of French Eating: Lessons in Food and Love from a Year in Paris and recipient of a James Beard Foundation culinary scholarship. Mah currently splits her time between Paris and New York City, but she loves eating everywhere.Elizabeth Bard, author of the bestselling memoir/cookbook Lunch in Paris and the co-founder of Scaramouche, an artisanal ice cream company in Cereste, France. Her next book, Picnic in Provence, will be published by Little, Brown in spring 2015.Cara Eisenpress, editor at Big Girls, Small Kitchen, author of In the Small Kitchen, and First We Feast contributor

1. French Onion Soup

Best recipe:Patricia WellsElizabeth Bard says: Whenever I need a starting point for a classic French recipe, I always end up chez Patricia Wells. She’s had her nose in the pots of so many wonderful French cooks, I’ve often wondered if her hair smells of garlic. Though I make French onion soup all winter, the only time I’ve ever been served this dish in France is at 4am—as the traditional midnight snack/early breakfast after an all-night wedding reception.

2. Buckwheat Crepes (Galettes au Sarrasin)

Best recipe:Chocolate and ZucchiniAnn Mah says: Brittany's crêpes—also called galettes—rely on the rough, nutty texture of buckwheat flour for their crisp edges and chewy centers. This recipe from Clotilde Dusoulier of Chocolate and Zucchini is an excellent starting point for making galettes at home, but the true value is in the comments, which offer helpful insights on American versus French buckwheat flour and the ratio of wheat flour to add to the batter. Don't be afraid to doctor your own ratio if your crêpes seem too heavy.

3. Cassoulet

Best recipe:Elle à TableKerry Saretsky says: There is something decidedly romantic and medieval—toile wallpaper-like—about spooning Castelnaudary cassoulet into your mouth in the shadows of the turrets of Carcassonne in southwest France. Cracking open the nearly black, pork-fueled breadcrumb crust on the top of a cassoulet and diving in is like hunting for buried treasure. Garlickly Toulouse sausages, at once bursting from their snapping, crispy casings and soaked in the intensely savory, also garlicky broth that suspends the little haricot blanc bean pearls. The crumbling, stewy joints of pork or goose. The grail of crispy, velvety duck confit. No bite is the same. You finish one bit wanting more, only to find there is something still better to come. It is hearty history, and my favorite dish. Nothing is more convivial or heartwarming than cassoulet.
I always love and recommend recipes from the French food magazine Elle à Table; as is their style, this recipe manages to meld authentic ingredients and simple preparation.

4. Lamb Tagine with Dried Apricots

Best recipe:Dorie GreenspanElizabeth Bard says: France’s colonial past has become an integral part of its contemporary cuisine. My mother-in-law is pied-noir, born in Casablanca, so the flavors and spices of North Africa play a special part in our family kitchen. Looking for an “authentic” tagine recipe is like looking for an authentic Bolognese recipe—everyone’s grandma’s is different , and everyone’s grandma’s is the best. I love this sweet and savory combination. It’s welcoming food, food for a crowd.
Dorie Greenspan’s blog is a place I wish I could literally dive into—like a culinary bubble bath. I never come away without the desire to spend the next three days holed up in my kitchen with a wooden spoon.

5. Cheese fondue (fondue au fromage)

Best recipe:SaveurAnn Mah says: Fondue is a fun, festive dish for a winter party especially since there's almost no cooking involved—just melt the cheese and serve. This recipe from Saveur offers excellent proportions, but I would use a mixture of Beaufort, Gruyère, and Comté cheeses (instead of just one variety), and add only a dash of kirsch. Remember—the quality of your fondue depends on the quality of the cheese, so buy the best.

6. Bouillabaisse

Best recipe:New York TimesKerry Saretsky says: My mother was born in Marseille, and every summer we go as a family to Provence, so this dish holds a special place in my heart and my stomach. It’s an expensive ritual, done port-side, that starts with a serving of fish soup, the broth that the fish and bones are stewed in, that’s thick with flaked fish and tomato and saffron and fennel. I smear the garlicky, ruddy rouille on the dry-toasted slices of baguette that crumble and dissolve into the soup. The smell of garlic is everywhere, and the perfumed flush of saffron is redolent of some ancient port past. It smells and tastes and is Provence to me.
Then comes the fish, shown whole, and then produced again in filets and chunks once it has been stewed in the soup. More rouille. More croûtes. More broth. You dive in, and need to be fished out at the end by a waiter with a dessert menu to remind you that life goes on after bouillabaisse. It may be expensive now, but I love that its origins are simple: Fishermen used the local ingredients of Provence to soup up the local rock fish that they couldn’t sell at the market to expensive restaurants and households. Even the name is simple: to boil, and to lower to a simmer. It’s honest, fresh, local food.
I love Mark Bittman’s version because it’s all vegetables and shellfish, my favorite parts, even though it’s not traditional.

7. Pan Bagnat

Best recipe:Food52Cara Eisenpress says: I once spent a summer with some people from Marseille, and they were over the moon about this sandwich, a between-the-bread version of the more well-known salad Niçoise. In this sandwich, the Mediterranean nature of Southern French food comes through.

8. Carottes Râpées

Best recipe:David LebovitzCara Eisenpress says: David Lebovitz calls grated carrot salad the national dish of France, and crazily enough, he might be right. When I lived in France, this guy was everywhere, even pre-packaged in vending machines. Lebovitz’s version truly is class: just grated carrots, some parsley, and a simple lemon vinaigrette. It’s about 100 times better than it sounds.

9. Pot de Crème

Best recipe:Claire RobinsonKerry Saretsky says: We have chocolate pudding and the French have pot de crème, which is a little pot of chocolate cream so thick you have to tug it off the spoon with you mouth, where it dissolves, not unlike a truffle, into a perfect chocolate tongue-coating mess. It is made somewhat similarly to crème brûlée, but with pot de crème, it’s the texture, the push and pull. You literally have to push your spoon into it, and pull it back off again, it’s so thick, and so purely tasting of chocolate.
I like Claire Robinson’s recipe because it keeps it simple, and the fruit and cream on top is required to cut through chocolate and cream this dense.

10. Molten Chocolate Cake

Best recipe:Jean-Georges VongerichtenElizbeth Bard says:Moelleux au chocolat played a starring role my first French love affair (and my enduring love affair with France). The first time I served these at a dinner party, I felt a teeny bit like a culinary genius. Rich, elegant, and deceptively simple to make, they can even be frozen and baked straight from the freezer. One tip—skip the floured ramekins, and use several foil cupcake liners stacked one inside the other until they hold their shape; this will allow you to unmold with ease. The cupcake size is perfect—as with so many of pleasures of the French table, less is definitely more.

11. Les Punitions

Best recipe:Smitten KitchenCara Eisenpress says: The bakery Poilane is an institution in Paris—you’ll see their sourdough bread at supermarkets everywhere. For an American, it’s a bit of a fight to understand why you’d eat sourdough bread instead of a warm baguette, but we can at least wrap our heads around the sugar cookies sold at the bakery. Dorie Greenspan tracked down the proportions for recreating this simple, melt-in-your-mouth cookie—and this is all about perfect proportions. Otherwise, les punitions are like any other.

12. Salade Lyonnaise

Best recipe:Mark BittmanAnn Mah says: Salade Lyonnaise—or frisée lettuce scattered with bacon and crowned with a poached egg—makes an excellent fast supper because almost all the ingredients are pantry staples. This recipe from Mark Bittman is simple and classic, with a savory bite from the shallots. I also like to add homemade croutons to soak up the vinaigrette and runny poached egg yolk.

13. Croque monsieur

Best recipe:Ina GartenCara Eisenpress says: The French win at grilled cheese by adding béchamel to the top of a melted ham and cheese sandwich. Ina’s recipe turns out a croquet exactly like the one you’d be eating at a little French café right about now.

14. Socca

Kerry Saretsky says: Street food was cool in Nice way before the food truck movement crashed into America, and socca is one of the many fantastic and entirely local finds, along with another favorite of mine, zucchini flower beignets. Socca are thin, chickpea flour crêpes, fried in Provençal olive oil, and dusted with sea salt. They are crispy but crumbly, charred, salty, earthy. You have to wipe your hands on your pants afterwards, but you don’t mind because it’s OLIVE oil. You can’t get these outside of Nice, but if you want to try making them, I recommend David Lebovitz for his commitment to authenticity.
Harissa is a spicy condiment you’ll spoon on top of almost any main dish once you grow to love it. Ana Sortun, chef at Oleana, has an incredible way with Middle Eastern flavors in general. Here, she adds sundried tomatoes to her harissa in order to give it a ketchup-like consistency. The recipe calls for Urfa chilies for kick—they are most easily ordered online.

15. Boeuf Bourgignon

Best recipe: Julia Child
Cara Eisenpress says: This is Julia Child’s recipe. It’s the yardstick for good French cooking. To be honest, it’s not all that hard, and it is really good.

16. Crepes with Butter and Sugar

Best recipe:EpicuriousCara Eisenpress says: Sweet crepes are essential late-night street food, especially for tourists. If you ever want to mimic the pancake you ate while walking the streets after a night out, here’s your recipe. The reason I like this one is because both the crepes and the filling are ultra simple and come out perfect every time.

17. Quiche Lorraine

Best recipe:Food NouveauCara Eisenpress says: There’s a real division in France about food that’s cooked at home and food you eat at a restaurant. No one really makes mille-feuille at home, for example. Quiche, on the other hand, is a common dinner. This one features what we think of as American breakfast foods—cream, eggs, and bacon—to form the classic version.

18. Skirt steak with shallots

Best recipe:Leites CulinariaAnn Mah says: This is a savory bistro classic that's easy to whip up at home—skirt steak is very thin, so the meat cooks in a flash. In this recipe, Thomas Keller uses all the classic flavors—thyme, butter, shallots—and adds a chef-y touch of reduced red wine jus (the recipe makes a bucketful even though only two tablespoons are used in the dish). I'd probably skip the red wine jus and instead reduce a dash of red wine with the shallots and meat juices—then again, I'm a simple home cook (not a chef).

19. Gâteau au Yaourt

Best recipe:Chocolate and ZucchiniElizabeth Bard says: Blogger and cookbook author Clotilde Dusoulier is the gold standard if you want a glimpse of what young French women are actually making in their kitchens. Her blog is a great place to learn about healthy modern French food—vegetarians will be especially pleased.

20. Bostock

Best recipe:SalonCara Eisenpress says: I discovered this unbelievably pastry at some tiny pastry shop, and I never looked back. The French, like many Europeans, are serious about using up their leftovers, and this recipes makes the most of stale brioche by moistening it with almond syrup

21. Homemade Mayonnaise

Best recipe:Amanda HesserElizabeth Bard says: Hellman’s, be gone! I didn’t eat a sandwich for my entire childhood because of this jiggly white goo. Tasting my first homemade mayonnaise in France was an epiphany—the heaven’s opened and the angels sang. Use sparingly with shrimp or crab, or to dress up a lunch of steamed vegetables and cod. You can make mayonnaise with an electric mixer, but my French father-in-law used to whisk his by hand. There are a million recipes out there, but I love Amanda Hesser’s wit and I trust her precision.

22. Moules Frites

Best recipe:SaveurCara Eisenpress says: The classic French-Belgian recipe pairs briny mussels, which are a cinch to make, with crispy fries. Even if you don’t want to make the fries at home, this recipe for flavorful mussels is extraordinary, full of flavor. After you extract your first mussel, use the shell as a utensil to eat the rest. That’s what the French do.

23. Lentil and Sausage Stew

Best recipe:Kerry SaretskyElizabeth Bard says: Lentils are the pretty girl with the unfortunate glasses, the hidden gem of my French kitchen. They're often ignored in the States, but the French recognize their simple, unconventional beauty. They pop up constantly in winter stews as well as summer salads. This is an excellent basic recipe from Kerry Saretsky. Her blog, French Revolution, effortlessly pairs her Franco-American roots with a modern urban lifestyle. When I make this dish, I get at least two meals out of it. I tend to leave the sausages whole, add a can of crushed tomatoes and a handful of fresh parsley. I serve the leftover lentils like chili, with avocado, crème fraiche, and chopped cilantro.

24. Salmon with Sorrel

Best recipe:Pierre TroisgrosKerry Saretsky says: I love this classic, ageless dish, and order it whenever I see it on a menu in France, since we so rarely see sorrel in the quantities necessary to make it here in the States. The salmon has its happy fattiness, which is exaggerated by the light creaminess of the sauce, and then summarily cut by the acerbic, tannic herbaceous tang of the sorrel. It’s out of this world, and totally different from anything you’ve ever tasted—and, essentially, very simple.
I love this Martha Stewart recipe because there is so much sauce (and a little vermouth). Serve it over some pommes purée. Heaven!

25. Céleri Rémoulade

Best recipe:David LebovitzCara Eisenpress says: Eaten beside carrottes rapees, this salad is made from grated celery root, a crunchy vegetable with the flavor of celery and the texture of a parsnip. The dressing is best based on homemade mayonnaise (see #21). In this recipe, Lebovitz explains the importance of the texture to this salad and threatens to start importing French-style vegetable graters so our shreds are neither too coarse nor too fine.

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